Manitoba premier promises to replace paper medical records with digital documents

Premier Wab Kinew says Manitoba will do away with paper medical records in favour of digital documentation that health-care practitioners and patients can access with a swipe of a phone or click of a mouse.

The premier said his NDP government wants to scrap Manitoba's existing patchwork of paper and electronic records, which he suggested is antiquated.

"Our government is committed to moving away from papyrus as a method of health-care documentation," Kinew said Wednesday in an interview.

"Part of improving health care in Manitoba means the physicians, the nurses and the health-care staff should be working on electronic records, and because we're always thinking about the patient, you should be able to access your records on your phone."

There is no timeline for the creation of a single, integrated system of electronic patient records in Manitoba.

Currently, most doctors' offices have electronic records, but only some hospitals maintain them — and not all of the electronic record-keeping systems in the province communicate with each other. The system still relies heavily upon paper records.

Bringing that record-keeping under one digital umbrella would require co-ordination on the part of Manitoba's large health bureaucracy, which encompasses Manitoba Health, Manitoba Shared Health and five regional health authorities.

It would also require the participation of hundreds of public and private medical practitioners, as well as clinics, that make up the broader provincial health-care system.

Prior to the Oct. 3 provincial election, Doctors Manitoba called on the province to create a single, integrated system of digital medical records.

The physicians advocacy group said in a statement it is "hopeful the government will move forward with this long overdue initiative, in partnership with physicians and with a solution that will decrease their administrative burden."

It pointed to a survey that found doctors cited inefficient record-keeping as their second most common administrative burden.

"The current patchwork of electronic record systems in Manitoba creates hours of unnecessary extra work each week for a doctor," the organization said.

It's unclear whether a plan exists to make the shift to digital documentation at a provincewide level. Manitoba Health said in a statement the province "is working to move toward consistent and accessible electronic medical records."

A plan to create a single identification card — but not necessarily a digital record-keeping system — was proposed by Greg Selinger's NDP government in 2016 and scrapped the following year by Brian Pallister's Progressive Conservatives.